To achieve a government of “the vital center” that “makes the necessary choices” and “common sense solutions” to put America “on a viable, sound path going forward,” with “free and open markets, tempered by sensible regulation,” a government that “empowers people” with “world-class education” and “affordable health care — provided that it does so in a fiscally prudent way,” and with “fact-based discussions.”

“The perpetrators of this mush,” Will concludes, “purport to speak for people who want to instruct everyone else about how to speak about politics.” And in linking to the Will article, InstaPundit asks and answers: “Why are they against labels? Because if they were labeled accurately, no one would listen to them….”

Since the No Label crowd would like to get rid of labels by gagging conservatives who call Democrats radical leftist socialists (and worse) and, at least in theory, liberals who call conservatives racist Neanderthals (and worse), you might think they would oppose the most insidious, divisive labeling that permeates and pollutes American politics — official, state-imposed racial classification, a classification that leads to governmental distribution of burdens and benefits on the basis of race. But, of course, being “moderates” (by their own dim lights), they don’t.

If the No Labelers were serious, or wanted to be taken seriously, they should encourage students of all ages to emulate the high school students featured in a Sacramento Beearticle:

Martin Luther King Jr. would be pleased by how students in Laguna Creek High School’s “unity class” embody his dream of “a nation where they will be not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The 37 students in teacher Jeanne Kirchofer’s classroom span nearly every combination of race and ethnicity. About half said they would rather be identified as Americans, erasing race from the boxes. They reflect a trend in California schools, where growing numbers of students and parents decline to state race on forms and tests.

“We shouldn’t be judged by our race,” said senior Jessica Mae Belcher, 17, whose roots are African and Cherokee. She prefers “none of the above” because “we’re all different, but we’re all the same, too.”

Students increasingly object to stating their race, but their government is standing in their way. As the Bee article reports,

From 2006 to 2009, the number of Elk Grove Unified School District students whose parents listed their race as “multiple/no response” went from 500 to 6,200 – a twelve-fold jump in just three years, the California Department of Education says. About one of every 10 of the district’s students now list race as “multiple/no response.”

There’s also been a dramatic rise statewide. Data show the number of K-12 students listing their race as “multiple/no response” has jumped 70 percent, from 124,000 in 2006 to 210,000 last year.

But the U.S. Department of Education, which is trying to close the achievement gap between races, is asking school officials to “eyeball” students who decline to state and check a box for them….

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to ensure students of all races achieve proficiency in English and math by 2014. So the agency is pressing schools to identify all students by race in 2010-11 or face penalties.

According to the Federal Register, there will no longer be a “no race and/or ethnicity unknown” category and schools will use “observer identification” when a parent or guardian refuses to identify race.

If the No Labelers were serious about ending divisive labeling, they would endorse and strongly support the Decline To State Race Project of Ward Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute.

“If America has any hope of becoming ‘colorblind,’ Connerly states on the “Decline To State” petition he is circulating,

the American people are going to have to take matters into their own hands and stop checking the race boxes. Without the data that results from racial bean counting, state and local agencies and universities can be stopped in their tracks in their insidious use of race.

American don’t need a No Label organization directed by Washington political insiders to stop racial labeling. We can do it ourselves by refusing to check the ubiquitous racial boxes. But any organization that purports to oppose divisive labeling that doesn’t oppose racial labeling should be treated as the fatuous laughingstock it is.

16 Comments, 12 Threads

According to no labeler philosophy, when one of them eats too many beans and goes to the doctor with a bad case of gas the visit proceeds thusly:

Beginning with the doctor.

How can I help you today?

You can mind your own business.

Excuse me. I mean are you hurting, need medicine, sick or what?

You’re the doctor. You tell me what is wrong. That is why I came to see you. It is why you get paid the big bucks.

But sir, I need some idea of about your problem if…

STOP!! What you are trying to do is pin one of your phony clinical labels on me so that you can soak the government out of more of my taxes.

Obama was right, all of you doctors are a bunch of over educated social misfits, little brats and children who throw tantrums if they don’t get everything they want. I came to you for a reason and you are too stupid to do your job, so you try to cop out and rip me off instead. Well, not on my watch you racist Neanderthal dork; I’m going to find a real doctor in Cuba, where they know bad gas when they see it.

When I first saw the headline, I thought – oh great, no labels on food cans and boxes! So, now we’ll have to guess what’s inside at the grocery store… then, I read the article and thought, oh, it’s the same thing, only now, we have to guess at what’s inside the politicians!

By the way, on forms that require one to tick a “race” box, if there’s not one marked “multiple/no response”, just tick all the boxes. That should do it.

After looking over their website, it looks to me like the No Labels group is a bunch of people (bureaucrats and/or people connected to the Democrat Party mostly) who want us all to politely agree on exactly what type of totalitarian, socialist government we’re going to have.

Think I’ll pass, since I didn’t see a single thing on their website I agreed with.

As for civility, when the government stops taking my money at the point of a gun to finance their little projects, then we can talk about civility.